Glory the Vampire Slayer
by DarthTenebrus
Summary: That is not dead which can rise again, although strange circumstances may change who she is, and who she will become, and that which was once a terrifying enemy may now become a powerful ally, maybe even a friend...
1. Coming Around

bGlory the Vampire Slayer/b

iDisclaimer and Author's Notes - Buffy is the sole property of Joss Whedon Enterprises, I claim no credit for the franchise's creation. I am merely taking it out of the box temporarily, and I promise to return these characters and settings in pristine order once I'm done. No profit is derived from this work other than the enjoyment of putting metaphorical pen to paper.

Beta'd by deiticlast, give him a shout out. Mistakes are mine./i

Chapter One - Coming Around

She awoke in an alley. There was something familiar about it, like a long-forgotten memory, and her mind struggled with the remembrance of it, a shadow of knowledge having once seen light, but ill-remembered and faded. The bricks of the buildings seemed vaguely known and yet utterly foreign, their glass-filled holes and the eagerness with which they invited perusal like those of an alien culture. Everything around her was cold and wet with...was it water?

Had it rained? Her skin should have felt chafed after being laid out on the cold, slick pavement for so long, but it was strangely unhurt, with no evidence that she had even been knocked out. Her hair might have seemed a shimmering gold, a web to capture sunlight. It was now bedraggled, plastered to her head with a darkened tawny blonde hue. The red dress she was wearing might once have been beautiful, fitting very closely to her shape, and even being drenched from shoulder straps to hem did not detract from the quality of her body, though now it left nothing to the imagination. There were even some tears along the seams that suggested someone larger than herself might have worn it, taken it off when she realised it didn't fit, then found her and dressed her in it. She kept trying to adjust one shoulder strap, but she soon gave up as soon as she realised it would do nothing for the perfectly proportioned breast that kept slipping out. Her cursory inspection concluded, she deduced that it must have rained quite a bit while she was out. Everything else, though, looked strange, with that quality of strangeness that plants doubt into one's mind as to a thing's familiarity.

"Where am I?" she asked the darkness. It replied only with silence. Mocking her. Something about it, she felt, seemed to want to make sure she remained uninformed. Whatever answers she sought would clearly lie elsewhere. She got up, looking around for anything that might give her a clue, and paying no heed to her torn dress or her disheveled appearance. That was not a priority at present. She walked around, noticing that she didn't have any problems with clomping around in five-inch heels, nor did she have any problems walking at all. As for the shoes, she wondered how anyone could walk in footwear that seemed designed to make people look like they were walking on their toes. It was as if she had never been rendered unconscious, save for her unfamiliarity with her surroundings.

As she walked down the alley, she focussed on little details, hoping for a smidgen of recognition, a tiny key that would unlock the mystery of her current condition. Nothing - it was as though the world had shut its mouth to her again. What had she done before being knocked out, that the world should judge her and decide she didn't deserve to remember it? She hated that smugness. That arrogance. The ridicule. The mockery of her ignorance would not long stand, if she had her way. She felt then the need to blame someone or something, to lash out, to punish someone or something. Almost in reflex she struck out with a balled fist and punched a hole in the nearest building's facing wall.

She gasped in shock. She should have had broken bones, or at least some bloody knuckles. Not only were there none, the large hole she punched in the wall - no, through the wall - suggested a strength beyond imagination. Slowly, she turned her gaze to her own fingers. A small part of her whispered that she should have felt joy in inflicting such destruction, but instead she felt only horror. One punch from her small fist removed nearly half of the wall, revealing the contents within. Some sort of retail store, or a clothing outlet for outdoors people. She couldn't be sure which, but what she was sure of was that she needed to teach herself how to control her feelings if she wanted to avoid future accidents like this.

The woman looked down the alley to its end, where it joined with another, larger passage. A faint mound was visible in the distance, seemingly illuminated by moonlight, and there was something on top of it. Something solemn about it drew her there, a thing that whispered faintly of recognition, and she decided her best chance to find out something was there. Cautiously, she approached the shrine. As she did so, details became apparent to her. The rubble strewn all about it gave the impression of worshippers giving praise to a deity of some kind. But what god?

What god?

She walked closer, noticing for the first time the signs that the mound of rubble had once been either a structure or part of one, and the closer she got, the more she saw that told her the damage had been recent, perhaps as recent as earlier that night. Perhaps there had been a ritual in progress here, either completed or interrupted by what appeared to have been a battle. Either way, it had ended.

What most aroused her curiosity about the mound was the remnant of ironworks and carpentry. The structure had either been very poorly constructed, or it had been made to be expendable. But how would she have known that? By the look of her hands she hadn't built it herself, but how would she have known it wasn't meant to last, like everything else around her was?

There was something else on the shrine as well, something that wasn't supposed to be there. Large splashes of something that had since dried were all over the top of the mound. She reached out with a hand and touched it, and as she drew her hand quickly back to examine her fingers two things became clear. There was an unmistakable scent of something sharp and metallic, and the splash patterns showed that something that had once been alive had fallen here with force, not landed, and had since been removed from the mound.

What had happened here? What was her involvement in all this? Had she been at the center of it all, or had she been some poor, unsuspecting by-stander, with no more power or ability to affect the events that had apparently transpired here than the next person? Too many questions. She decided at that moment that she didn't like questions, especially ones she couldn't answer. There was something about this, though, something that nagged at her and refused to go away, that told her she needed those answers, if she was to ever figure out what had happened to her and why.

After a moment's consideration she decided she wasn't going to get her answers here. She looked around, wondering just how large and spread-out this city was. She picked a direction at random and started walking, hoping she'd run across something that would give her another clue to her circumstances, but with as much information as she lacked one direction was as good as any. Either she would find something or she wouldn't, but she knew she'd want to know something.

There was also a distinct feeling she had begun to pick up about the town, something disturbing and yet soothing at the same time. It whispered to her its comfort and its support, given only to the greatest of powers, those strong enough to seize and guard it against all rivals. The sensation felt like a living electric presence, dark and terrible in its majesty. It told her in whispers of feeling and sensation that she, too, once possessed such power and that she had reveled in it. It told her that like it, she had been a predator in the dark waiting to pounce upon the unwary and the unfortunate, to slake her hunger with their innocent flesh.

There was something else about that sense, that living presence, that she found utterly repugnant. She didn't understand why she felt so repelled by the power, no matter its communications to her that she had not always recoiled from it, but there was a certainty she felt now, after having taken the time while walking to attune her senses to her surroundings. Somehow she wanted nothing to do with that darkness, and she would find a way to get as far away from it as she could. She learned something in that moment, something that served as a guide towards her ultimate goal. She searched with her mind for the places where the darkness held the least influence and started walking again.

She didn't know how long she had been walking, letting the light guide her way, but she found her way eventually to an edifice that seemingly served as a centre of religious worship. It was different than the mound of rubble in the alley. Where the mound had been placed there by happenstance, a random occurrence related to whatever had occurred earlier tonight, this edifice had been erected with purpose and with love. She was drawn here, she had felt, by both beckoning forces, the light and love that pulled and the darkness, the predatory essence that repelled. She let herself be carried towards the building, allowing her feet to move of their own accord.

Evening Mass had been better tonight than most, as the people who'd come had been unusually anxious, dreading some unnamed thing that had made itself felt across the town. Whatever it had been, people had come believing the presence of the Lord would help and succor them. Tonight, the Lord's courage had given them strength to stand together in His house to weather the evil tempest outside, and when it had abated, and the church stood firm, they had lifted their voices in song, giving Him His just and due praise, and they had gone feeling better, stronger, more whole than they had arrived.

He had seen the last of his parishioners exit the church when he had seen her. An attractive white blonde approaching thirty, tonight her appearance suggested she had seen better days. The driving rain had drenched her only garment, causing the shimmering red dress to cling to her skin and reveal every curve she had. Moreover, the dress was torn, as if someone larger than her had tried to wear it, and now one strap and practically the whole left side dangled off her, revealing a rather smallish breast supported by well-defined pectoral muscles and the collarbone above.

"Are you alright, my child?" he asked. He slowly approached her, careful to remain out of arm's reach lest she show signs that she was not herself.

"Where am I? What is this place?" the woman asked. The confusion in her eyes suggested some mild amnesia, which told him he was going to have to take it slow with her.

"You're in the House of God," he answered, smiling slowly. "I'm Father Jennings. Can you tell me your name?" His grey eyebrows raised slightly in patient anticipation.

She looked away for a moment. "My name...now you mention it, I don't actually remember. In fact, I don't remember much of anything before tonight," she recalled, as anxiety slowly crept into her voice.

"What's the last thing you do remember?" asked the priest.

"Just...waking up in an alley a few blocks down, maybe an hour ago?" The look on this young woman's face told Father Jennings that she was as confused as she was amnesiac.

"I'd say you were probably knocked out by someone during the storm earlier tonight, miss. Judging by how your dress has been ruined, I would further assume they figured it would be easier to have their way with you while you were unconscious. Some men just have no respect for women. They forget that God made Eve to be a help meet for Adam, not a servant, and most definitely not his property."

"God?" she asked Father Jennings, her expression evincing more confusion than he had previously assumed.

"What ails you, however, young lady," he concluded, getting back on track, "is not a matter of faith, but of the mind. What you need is a hospital, but first might I recommend a change of clothes?"

No one spoke at the police station. The Scoobies could do little more than look at each other in a state of shock, their energy too far gone from the fighting earlier tonight. Anya was silently weeping in Xander's arms even as Tara was doing the same in Willow's.

Nobody wanted to see the expression on Dawn's face, knowing it had to reflect the ever-greater intensity of her loss. She had no one now, no blood kin, no one who could even remotely understand what she had just endured, or why. Giles had offered her his embrace to comfort her, but she had chosen Spike to hold onto. Of all the people in this world, the only one she thought could comfort her was the vampire that had stood beside her and her family. Of all the people in this world, Spike, the enemy of all her kind, was the only one who could understand what she was going through.

First her mother, and now her sister. The father didn't even count, having never made a conscious effort to come visit or to even respond to her. He wasn't even in the country, as far as she knew. She was alone, alone beside her friends and adoptive family, and soon she would have to go down into the morgue and identify her sister's body. That would never serve to do anything but tear the open hole in her chest so much wider. Spike reflected on the time he'd spent in Kensington while still alive. He'd helplessly watched his own mother deteriorate from consumption to the point where, soon, she'd either die or progress to such a state that she'd never be able to speak again before she died. They called it tuberculosis nowadays, but that was just a rose by another name, without the rosey sweetness.

Then he'd been turned, he'd become an immortal vampire, and seeing as how he felt he hadn't changed except in his body, he'd hoped from then that he could save his mother from her terrible ordeal. He could reverse what was happening to her, and all for the price of a little blood each night. What utter foolishness, he'd realised later, after having to stake his own mother when he'd understood with finality that the demon that occupied his mother's body was not his mother in the least bit. She had said the most terrible things to him, things she never would have said while she had still lived, even as the lung disease had taken its toll on her. And the worst part was the eyes. They had done it for him. He had seen not a trace of his mother in those cold, yellow eyes, and he swore he'd never sire another vampire for as long as he existed. He'd lost his mother forever, and he'd grieved for over a century. And now he saw the same look of grief in Dawn's eyes, missing only that finality of understanding. Spike was only glad she hadn't had to endure his fate.

Once she saw the face of the body under that white sheet, that finality would etch itself onto her own face, and that scar would never part from her as long as she lived. He didn't want that for her, uncharacteristic as it was of him. It was uncharacteristic of any vampire's nature to feel any compassion for their prey, but he did. Oh, he did. Whether it was the chip in his head or the power the Monks of Dagon had poured into her to make everyone feel protective of her was another matter. The Big Bad was not supposed to be a shoulder to cry on, but here he was, and he couldn't deny it. He had grown a soft spot for the Summers women, and he wasn't sure that it was a bad thing.

The fast, yet unhurried clip of shoe heels on tile interrupted everyone's brooding, and all eyes turned up to see the familiar face of Detective Lieutenant Paul Stein. He was all business tonight, with the brown jacket, the badge on the leather wallet hanging from a chain around his neck, and the big black Sig-Sauer holstered on his hip. He looked for the most authoritative figure in the group, and his eyes locked onto the spectacles of the British librarian who had once worked at Sunnydale High before its destruction. He stepped forward purposefully, yet respectfully, having acknowledged the sorrowful gazes on everyone else, and he lowered himself so that he was eye to eye with the Briton.

"Mr Giles," he began, "I can't begin to imagine how terrible this has been, for all of you, but as Dawn is the closest living relative to the deceased, we can't ask anyone else to come down the hall and identify the body."

"Detective, you're absolutely correct," replied Giles in a soft, yet icy tone of voice, "you have no idea how terrible this has been, nor how much worse it could have been for us all. I suspect you're fully versed in what transpires in this town, so it follows that you would be used to these words. But Dawn can not at all go down there alone - she's just watched her own sister sacrifice her life for something none of us are fully capable of comprehending, so the emotional strain would be greater than she could bear. But if someone were to go down with her?" He cast his gaze around the group as he spread his hands in a solicitous gesture, hoping at least one of them would volunteer and yet worrying which one actually would.

Stein looked at everyone for a moment, meeting their faces, and he nodded slightly after a moment. "Well, it's not usually departmental procedure, but I think I can allow one other person down there with Miss Summers for emotional support. Would you be willing to stand with her?"

"I'll do it," volunteered Spike.

At once Xander sprung out of his seat, ready to deal death. "Like hell you will!" he snarled.

Spike stood quickly, ready to take on the hot-blooded twenty-year-old despite the pain it would cause him, while Dawn and Anya each attempted to persuade their defender to let cooler heads prevail. Willow, meanwhile, stood with light bending around her hands to form the makings of a barrier she prepared to place between the two combatants.

"Xander!" Giles shouted. The volume in that one word caused him to stop advancing toward Spike, and he sat back down with a gimlet glare to the vampire. "Despite my own misgivings, Spike is the closest person, I suspect, that Dawn has ever felt freely able to open up to. Whatever your antipathies toward Spike and to vampires in general, Dawn needs this. You need to back down and let Spike take her in hand. Say what you will about Spike, but he has been respectful to Buffy, even as an adversary, and he's never shown any hostile intentions toward Joyce, may they both rest in peace." His shoulders shrugged slightly, as though Rupert had been relieved of a very great burden.

"Thank you, Rupert, that means a lot to me that you acknowledged that," Spike replied, surprisingly with none of his usual bravado or swagger. He found himself feeling a new and different sort of respect for the Watcher, that he would praise the kindness of Joyce and Buffy's sacrifice. Spike himself found himself learning respect for a Slayer's mother, especially Joyce, when she had hit him over the head with the blunt back of a fire axe. He stole a moment to look at each of the Scoobies. Willow and Tara were ambivalent, presumably thinking that while he was a vampire and wouldn't be missed if he met his demise one night, the fact that he had spoken of their best and closest friends in such warm terms made them relax a bit around him, almost as though he had a soul himself.

Squelch that thought right now, Spike. Soul of not, he needed to eat rats and pigs and to act like the Great Poofter like he needed a stake in the heart.

He saw the look in Anya's face. Sheer indifference, and nothing else, that's what returned his gaze. It was the indifference born of a thousand plus years of doling out revenge in the name of justice for brokenhearted women. Mere months of renewed existence as a human female changed nothing for her, and she, like any demon before her, saw vampires as filth to be eradicated, to cleanse the planet for the return of demonkind. It was odd that such ancient indifference could find itself sharing space in the heart with the quiet sorrow that was equally uncharacteristic for one such as the former Matron Saint of Scorned Women. And yet, there it was. She wouldn't support him, but she wouldn't condemn him, either.

Xander's countenance was a battleground, red-hot rage warring with cold hatred for the right to possess his soul, but both knew that if a vampire, any vampire stepped forward, that both would immediately turn on the hapless haemovore. He'd seen that look before, in many of his victims' relatives, and he knew that in most any other case that look in someone's eyes usually preceded a lynch mob being organised and torches being lit, and all chance for an understanding would be reduced effectively to zero.

No amount of persuasion would soften the hardened heart of Xander Harris.

The same war was being waged in Rupert Giles's eyes, but to a much lesser extent. There was practically an armistice in Giles's heart, making room for more honest emotions such as respect and admiration for the man who had just spoken what amounted to words of gratitude for Giles's impromptu eulogy. Say what one would about vampires in general, but at least Spike appreciated his prey, and Giles knew that.

Dawn was a flashing neon sign of mournful agony. A target for abduction virtually every Tuesday, practically helpless and in constant need of protection, she'd just seen that protection torn, ripped away like a layer of burnt skin to expose the fragile flesh beneath. Nobody understood that her whole world had just been destroyed. Buffy had practically been her shield and her shelter against the storm of darkness. Now, Buffy was her Alderaan, and there would be no Rebel pilot to destroy the Death Star that had been Glorificus. Without her mother and her sister, her life now held very little value or meaning, and when she saw her sister's face under that white sheet, it would be another stake in her heart, that is, if she were undead. Which she most certainly was not, and Spike aimed to keep it that way.

Still, it could not be avoided, and even after that there would still be the funeral to endure. She stood up, finally, after a moment that she had taken to collect herself as best she could. Dawn looked at Spike, then back at the others as if seeking their encouragement. A few nods went her way, while one glared in protest, and she turned back to Spike, nodding her readiness to attend this most sorrowful of tasks.

"I'm ready," she said. Spike nodded in response and wrapped his leather duster around her shoulders, eliciting one more hate-filled stare from Xander, maybe even a slightly audible growl before they walked down to the morgue…

Hank had taken off for Sunnydale as

soon as he'd heard the news of Joyce's death, despite his beautiful secretary's protestations, and he'd driven the entire two hours on I-5 at a speed that most resembled that of a NASCAR enthusiast while still avoiding the attention of local law enforcers. And when he'd arrived, he'd not bothered with calling Buffy or Dawn, instead going straight to Sunnydale Regional Health System.

The news that Joyce had died from a brain aneurysm had left him dumbstruck, numb, hot and cold at the same time. It hurt. It hurt bad, and maybe that meant he'd actually loved her. Who knew, but what he did know was that he'd hung up on his secretary, who was practically begging him to go back to her home and do that thing that she loved so much. He'd hung up on her and drove like a madman all the way to Sunnydale so he could see her and the girls. He knew they'd both loved their mom more than anything on God's green earth and would move Heaven and Hell to keep her safe.

To his everlasting regret, Hank had learned only too late, after the divorce had been finalised and the custody arrangements set, that he would have done the same for her. So yes, he had loved her. And now he couldn't tell her.

He was in no way whatsoever prepared for the news of his eldest daughter's death, though. A bitch of a storm had come out of nowhere last night, a freak occurrence, and Buffy had done what she did best in that town, helping people and saving lives. She'd apparently fallen to her death from some ramshackle structure, trying to get people down, little Dawn among them, and now she was laying on a metal slab in the SPD morgue.

Hank had gotten the directions to the SPD Precinct 1 headquarters and barrelled over there as fast as he could safely manage. If someone needed to identify Buffy's body, it would be him. How could it not? He was the only family Dawn had left, so it was naturally a foregone conclusion.

It was cold in the SPD Precinct 1 morgue, where the medical examiner was finishing up some final batches of paperwork on the first casualties of tonight's storm. There were times when he would have gleefully traded jobs with the police janitor - at least he never had to ask a grieving family member if they knew the dead person under the white sheet. Not that he ever had to draw away the sheet to reveal the deceased - there was a sitting room next to the morgue for that, and the deceased was never transported in there. Identification was always done by photograph, and always with respect and reverence, and there was always a grief counselor with the family members who were there. It was best this way.

Eleven years in forensics took its toll on a person, especially in Sunnydale, and he had seen some weird things in his tenure as Sunnydale County's ME. Things like that case with the former high school principal, James Flutie, who'd been eaten in his office by wild animals, or so the report suggested. Thing was, the autopsy report also said the bite marks were made by human teeth, not hyenas or dogs as local witness statements had detailed. That was weird. It was also quite common.

The rare breaks he got from the routine weirdness were a welcome sight. Just a couple of weeks ago a local art dealer, one Joyce Summers, had died suddenly from a brain aneurysm, apparently a complication from surgery to remove a tumour in her cerebrum. Case open, case closed. That was it, no foul play suspected, no weirdness. The only sad part was that she was quite the looker. He had suddenly remembered a line from an old war movie by Stanley Kubrick.

'No more boom-boom for this mama-san…" Privately, he had declared a National Day of Mourning for single men worldwide. Joyce had two daughters that she had raised by herself after a disastrous divorce, the eldest, Elizabeth, or Buffy as she was commonly known, having a reputation for arson that was probably ill-deserved, and a violent protective streak a light-year wide, which, given her rather frequent run-ins with school authority and at least one murder charge that got reversed, made a sort of sense. Since Buffy's arrival in the 'Dale, the mortality rate found itself cut in half once and then again over the past five years. And now the elder daughter was occupying the same cold slab as her mother, the result of doing what she did best...protecting people.

If there was any justice in the world, the funerals for both Joyce and Buffy would be one single service, since they had each met their end so close together. It wasn't a matter of economy, but of closure for the younger daughter, Dawn.

Dawn Summers, who now was being escorted to the sitting room by Chief Stein. Technically, Detective Stein, but everyone knew that since Bob Munroe had been a Wilkins hack on the take for most of his term as Chief, and with more than half of the force having answered to Wilkins directly, Stein was the one that held the department together and kept it as competent as he could manage. And that still wasn't saying much given the nature (or lack thereof) of the town's nighttime denizens. No-one wanted the town to be the target of an FBI probe. Even Mayor Douglass had his hands tied when it came to the darker side of Sunnydale.

A knock on the door signalled the end of Jenkins' ruminations.

"Yes?" he reeponded.

"Jenkins?" came the voice of Chief Stein. "You got a minute or two for a formal proceeding?"

That meant only one thing. Dawn was in the sitting room along with whichever family had decided to accompany her, waiting to go through the whole painful process.

"Yes, Chief, as it turns out, I can spare a moment. Just let me take some quick photos and we'll be there for her."

Jenkins took a second to put away most of the equipment that littered the morgue and straightened out his lab coat and badge. He unpacked his digital camera that was department standard issue for taking official photographs and snapped about three standard shots, viewing them in the screen for any discrepancies before saving them, then he printed each photo and placed them in a manila folder before he walked out to meet them.

She couldn't have been more than thirteen years old by the look of her, but she was almost as tall as Stein. Dark brown hair hung straight down to her hips, framing a face with chocolate brown eyes, a straight, aquiline nose, delicate cheeks and full lips. This all topped a slender frame that had yet to develop into adulthood. Give her ten, maybe fifteen more years and she'd be quite attractive.

There was something else, something that made him want to hide her away from the world for her sake. It was just a feeling, but it was persistent, nagging. He had to put that aside, though. He had a job to do, and a rather thankless one at that.

Another person strode in, a tall blond male full of confidence and fire, wearing as much leather as he could get, walking straight over to Dawn and wrapping his arms protectively around her without so much as a by-your-leave from the Chief or anyone. His gaze challenged anyone to try and stake their claim to her and promised dire consequences for the doing.

"Well now," he said to Dawn with an obvious Cockney accent, "you ready to do this, Little Bit?"

Jenkins, for his part, didn't quite understand the relationship between them. "And you are?"

"Spike."

"Real name?"

Spike stepped toward Jenkins and laid a hand firmly on his shoulder, leaning in to speak directly into his ear. "Not your business...and let's keep it that way, yeah?" It was strange, but that hand had been awfully cold. There had been very little breath on his cheek when he spoke. And Jenkins didn't know if his eyes were fooling him, but for the very briefest of moments, so brief as to be almost imaginative, but Spike's face seemed to flow and distort, with ridges in the forehead, lambent yellow eyes, and elongated cuspids.

A vampire? Nah, couldn't be. But Jenkins had been left rattled by the experience enough, he didn't bother pressing Spike on the issue.

"It's cold in here, Spike," said Dawn, who threw herself almost needfully into Spike's chest.

"Can't help with that, Nibblet, I'm as cold as the driven snow," he replied to her, almost reflexively wrapping his arms around her small shoulders.

"I need that kind of cold."

"Then remind me to drop you off in the middle of a snowstorm one night. Right now we need to get this done," he pointed out, indicating Jenkins and his manila folder.

All eyes, including Chief Stein's, were on him now, promising a world of hurt if he screwed the poodle on this one.

"Why don't we sit dow - down?" Jenkins indicated the low table and a quartet of semi-comfortable chairs surrounding it. As he extended his arm, Dawn seized the folder in a flash and sat, then opened the folder without any hesitation.

"Uh, take your time," he added unnecessarily. He then sat down next to her and watched for her reaction. The task of identifying the dead body of a loved one was arduous and patient, to say the least, and people who got called in to ID a loved one ran the usual gamut of reactions from quiet acceptance, to hysterical laughter or weeping, to rage-filled denial.

Dawn reached into the folder and, quickly and unhurriedly, turned over the first photo. She took in a deep breath, reflexively as it seemed to forestall the tide of emotion that threatened to drown her, and let it out when she was sure she wouldn't break down.

"It's Buffy," she said very simply. "I saw her fall from a tower, and I was there when emergency services removed her body from on top of a pile of rubble." She was still waging war against her emotions for control of her self, and for the most part it seemed like she was winning.

Jenkins and Stein had each seen that look in the eyes of young children before. It was a look that suggested that they were just barely handling it, that the best thing for them would be to go in a room and cry and scream it out until their emotions were spent. Most kids that age were not meant to handle that kind of violent death, and getting a grip on their feelings again most of the time meant they needed a little help. This thirteen-year-old girl, who had just lost both her mother and her sister in the space of a few weeks, was one of a kind.

"You sure you're ok?" He had to ask, as it was only right to be sure.

Dawn nodded contemplatively, "I know at some point I'll need to go somewhere and cry my frickin eyes out, but that does me no good right now, not here. I'm looking at you too, and while I want to say thank you for helping me get through this, there's another part of me that wants to fall in love with you and have your babies, but that would just be the grief talking. Sound about right so far?"

Both Jenkins and Stein found their eyes had widened to saucers by this point - for a thirteen-year-old, this girl, this Dawn Marie Summers had an uncommon maturity. It felt wrong. She should have been nearly overwhelmed by what she should have been actually feeling instead of describing with words. Speaking of words, there was that part about jumping his bones that frankly disturbed the ME. Even though that was a normal grief response in most women, that was not a normal grief response in little girls of Dawn's age.

Dawn flipped the other two photos over, and a sigh escaped her lips as a gentle smile formed. "You know, we all came this close to dying? All of us, the whole world, and it was this woman, this one woman here was responsible for saving us. She's a hero, she deserves a hero's funeral. Full honours."

Stein stepped over to her and took the seat across from her. "If there's any justice in the world, she'll get them. Your mother too. I'll see to it your sister gets an honourary rank in the Sunnydale PD, posthumously. I think she'd have made a great Captain."

Dawn smiled. "Thank you, Chief Stein. That means a hell of a lot. I think we're done here then."

"Yes, Miss Summers, thank you for coming in."

Hank had just gotten out of his car at SPD Precinct 1, hoping he wasn't too late, as it had gotten fully dark when he saw Dawn exiting the station house with her friends and two older guys, Brits from their voices. He couldn't take another step when he saw the brown-haired boy throw his arm around her shoulders.

"Thank God you guys are here. I was worried that I might have to take Dawn in there with me to ID Buffy -"

His face exploded in pain as Dawn's arm flashed out and her fist struck him across the jaw.

"You've got a lot of nerve, showing up here when you wouldn't so much as return a phone call or bother to spend time with any of us. My mother and my sister are both dead now, and you might as well be too."

"I can't blame you for what you must think of me, but can you at least come with me so I can ID your sister?"

"I already did that." Dawn stared at him unblinking, waiting for a word, a move, any reason to cold-cock him again. The older Brit then stepped over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Mr Summers, I don't know how much your daughters meant to you, and from what I'm told I have no reason to care. Suffice it to say that you are neither wanted nor welcome around here."

The boy, Xander as he remembered his name was, offered his two cents.

"He means get lost, asshole. This town ain't big enough for you. Giles?"

'Giles' then tightened his grip and pulled Hank in closer. "Get in your car and leave this town at once. And if you are seen in this town again after this night, we will find you and we will feed you to a vampire."

The blond Brit, the one in the duster, smiled slightly, and then his face distorted in a mockery of humanity, with ridges on the forehead, burning poisonous yellow eyes, and elongated canines. All the warmth left Hank's blood, and he found himself scrambling back to his car, speeding off as soon as he could start the engine.

"I hope he gets a ticket for speeding," said Xander as Hank's Audi faded into the distance.

"At least some justice will be served in this town," quipped Anya.

Her fellow Scoobies immediately tried to suppress their resultant laughter.

"What?" she asked, her shrug and innocent expression speaking volumes.

Xander wrapped his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders, and he planted a gentle kiss on her cheek as he replied. "I think justice has been served, you made Dawn laugh. Thank you."

Anya looked at Xander out of the corner of her eye and said, "You can thank me later tonight with an orgasm or two…"

"Get a room, you two," retorted Spike. "Go make puppies or something."

Anya's expression turned instantly to abject horror. "Bunnies?"

Xander chuckled. "No, ipuppies/i. He meant kids, as in we'll have a house full of them if we aren't careful."

Anya's face then softened, although the colour didn't quite return fully to her cheeks. "Oh...kids. Yeah, I'm not ready for that…"

"There's hope for America after all," Giles groused.

"Can we go home now, guys?" asked an impatient Willow.

Hank forgot how long he had been driving. He also hadn't bothered to think about where he wanted to go, as his thoughts continually returned to Dawn and her friends, and their cruel rejection of him and subsequent threat. What really drove it home for him was the blond Brit, and how his face seemed to shrivel and reform into the nightmare visage that had taken hold of his mind and refused to let go.

The horror in that face was cause enough for quite a number of near-misses during his motorised wanderings. He surely didn't need to be drunk on top of being freaked the eff out. That way led to vehicular injury, possibly manslaughter, and as competent as Sunnydale's finest reputedly weren't, they'd still arrest him, and he'd sit in the county lockup with no bond, waiting for his day in court.

Far better to find a place to stop and relax. Esmeralda could shout at him in that sexy accent all she wanted, but he needed to make sure he was fit to drive, and that meant being calm and sober. It was a stroke of good luck that he was near to a place just off Revello that served the best crafted coffee drinks this side of LA, and so ten minutes or so later he found himself sitting inside the Espresso Pump.

The gurney nearly blasted through the doors to the emergency room. The EMTs weren't waiting for such a trivial thing as an electronic eye to register their movement and open the door. Perhaps in future one or more of them might write a strongly worded letter to the research and development guys who produced each upgraded model of motion sensor to include an urgency protocol in the next upgrade. The faster the movement, the sooner and faster the doors could be triggered and opened. But for now the manual override sufficed, the gurney almost serving as a battering ram as they wheeled in their latest tragic victim, who lay there, strapped down and sedated, doped to the gills as others took his fate in their hands.

Hank Summers hadn't yet managed to process it. He'd met a stunning blonde in the Espresso Pump, bought her a drink while he admired her athletic attire, however ill-fitting, as it had hugged her body in all the right places. A cropped grey sweatshirt emphasised her bustline, giving it dimension and fullness, even if it was merely the illusion of size. The darker grey yoga pants clung to her legs and hips like a second skin, shaping them well, the lines and crosshatching improving the sexual appeal of their appearance. Hank Summers had certainly thought to give that outfit his seal of approval. White sneakers, or rather, running shoes as they called them now, clad her dainty feet. While Hank might have preferred five-inch stilettos, beggars couldn't be choosers, and he certainly could have done worse.

The girl was an amnesiac - she didn't know her own name, but at the time, talking to Hank seemed to put her at ease, and soon the subject turned to more mature topics. She began to smile more, and to lean in closer, and before either knew it Hank was driving her to his hotel room. Once they were inside she found herself wanting to press her lips to his, and to insert her tongue into his mouth, and then some other parts of her body began clamoring for attention, specifically that part between her legs, and she had a sudden need to remove her clothing. Her initial confusion soon gave way to realisation as Hank's subsequent gentle ministrations made that part of her body feel…ivery/i...good, and immediately she understood she wanted more.

Hank knew the signs, and he was ready to serve. He had always been able, ready and willing to serve the needs of most wanton women, provided they informed him plainly of those needs and their urgency. It was what had endeared him to Esmeralda so much, aside from her intoxicating beauty of course. She didn't bother with beating around the bush - if she needed to fuck, she said so, and the two of them would quietly duck into the broom closet for a quick one. It made the longer lovemaking sessions at his or her home more worthwhile, the notion that a five-minute quickie only made them want more, and the same applied here, in this rathole of a hotel in a rathole of a town, between Hank and this strange beautiful amnesiac woman. He applied the lessons he learned from Esmeralda, and this wonderful, surprisingly durable blonde proved quite responsive, so at least she wasn't a complete amnesiac. In the office and elsewhere, he was in charge - the bedroom was a different matter altogether. She took the reins, she guided him.

At first, the strange blonde was beneath him, but then he urged her to flip them over, so that she was on top. She realised that this new position felt better, much better, and she could allow her hips to do what they wanted. She arched her back, again and again, the glorious heat and wetness building up inside her, her body begging for more. Her breath hitched as he sat up, bracing behind himself with one arm as he wrapped his other arm around her waist, and she figured if she was to match his thrusts with her own, that she should do the same. One arm behind her, she draped her other arm over his shoulder and around his neck to support her, their combined efforts rewarded with renewed thrusting.

Suddenly the heat and wetness inside her gave way to what began as a mild tension, but gradually increased to a tightening of her canal as Hank began to thrust more strenuously. The more he thrusted, the more she met him, and the tighter her inside became until her inside seemed to explode within her, in an unbelievable rush of ecstasy - her eyes clenched shut and she screamed with delight as every muscle in her body spasmed in waves of heat and pleasure.

Her joy proved to be extremely short-lived, as she heard his screams. They were not joyful, but expressive of the most severe agony he had ever felt. Her eyes snapped open in fright to his spasms, as he struggled to free himself from her vagina. She panicked then, frightened that she had hurt him so grievously, and in so doing she proved his struggles futile. Her backwards scrambling in terror did for him what his most energetic flailing could not, and she tore away from him. A fountain of bright red gushed from between them as they both felt something tear, and Hank's screams became more terrified than agonised as he felt his penis tear quickly away from his body, still seized by the strongest, most enduring contraction a vagina had any right to experience.

She screamed in terror, then, as she saw the results of her orgasm. The blood, turned pink and frothy from his emissions, coated his legs, and he had curled about himself reflexively as he attempted to protect the remains of his genitalia from further destruction. A thought then occurred to her, a thing which should not have been possible, that urged her to redirect her gaze from his body to hers. Like Hank, her own legs were drenched in blood, as were the sheets. As if on reflex, she reached between her legs to feel the extent of the bleeding. Her hand came away stained completely red, but what completed the horrific picture was not the blood, nor the pitiful image of Hank Summers, now whimpering and clutching at a stump of ruined flesh. She reached back down…

It was still inside her.

With just the tip of her finger and thumb, she probed between the folds of her sex, feeling within for the amputated member, her mind reeling as they sought purchase. She fought to balance firmness and delicacy in her grip, as she dared not tear the member further and risk it being forever lodged within her canal. The remnant of the penis proved surprisingly accommodating as she gave it only the slightest of tugs outward, away from her cervix and past the labia. She fought the urge to gag as it slid slowly, in fits and starts, out of her vagina, and she tossed it away from her as she completed the extraction, like some infectious thing, a dying lump of tissue that to her might have already turned necrotic. Some sense of an old predator must have awakened her perceptions, as adrenaline, or whatever ancient impulse there was, compelled her to flip over on the bed and remove herself from the premises as swiftly as she would. She managed to retain some presence of mind, having secured her clothing in her mad dash out of the hotel room.

No-one bothered to complain as she thrust through every wall in her singular flight from the horrific scene she had created - their concern was for the whinging, traumatised man in the room from which she had fled. They knew that too many unexplained disappearances occurred in this town, especially in the hotels and warehouses, and that the police were entirely ill-equipped to deal with the problem. Hence, their resolve to keep at least one man or woman from becoming another statistic. To them, the word 'statistic' was synonymous with 'victim', and, honest hard-working people that they were, who cared for each other as much as for anyone who made an honest living and looked out for their fellow human beings, the act of summoning emergency medical technicians to a hotel or an alley was as routine as brushing their teeth.

(End Chapter One)


	2. Discovery

**Chapter Two - Discovery**

**Sunnydale, unknown location**

Two hours later the woman, recently cleaned and reclothed, watched through the glass with tears streaming down her face as EMTs wheeled a heavily sedated Hank Summers into the triage area, with absorbent pads on his groin and an intravenous feed inserted into his arm, to await evaluation and surgery. When they rounded the corner, to disappear from sight, she turned and walked away from the hospital cursing whatever deities there might have been that made her...whatever she was.

She walked all night, looking at everyone and everything. They looked like her, these people, especially the women, but they weren't the same as her. They didn't have her strength, her speed or her durability. Their flesh tore like paper, they were embarrassingly slow on their feet while she was a blur in motion, and their strongest buildings just crumbled if she tried to go through them. Thinking about it all, she knew that something made her different than them, gave her these abilities, these -

She wouldn't call them gifts. Had she the power she would have gladly passed them to another, more deserving unfortunate soul to agonise over. Just where did these powers come from, that she should be unlucky enough to get stuck with them? And what other abilities might she have, as yet unknown and unmanifested? She walked along, looking up at the starlit heavens as a cool night breeze stirred her hair, thinking about what supernatural being might have imbued her with these powers. It would make sense, she thought, to balance out the scales if she had power to heal and rebuild as well as to hurt and destroy. She thought about Hank, remembering how he was only half there as they had injected him through his IV with another sedative to keep him from feeling any more serious pain from his amputated manhood. She fought fresh tears as she thought how much of a relief it would be to be able to reattach his penis to his body, to restore his blood volume, and to wash away all memory of the pain with but a kiss.

It wasn't until she found herself back in Father Jennings's church that she had dared to ask anyone what her powers meant, and what she might do to make things right.

"Father Jennings," she asked, "how do I seem compared to most other people?" Her eyes shone with fresh, unreleased tears, and she trembled inwardly with undiminished guilt over what had transpired only hours past.

Her expression was not lost on the old priest, nor was it unique. Quite a few people in his parish had had that same look at least once in their lives, and usually a session or two in the confession booth was enough to allay their fears, at least long enough for them to sort out them out on their own. This young woman had an unknown quality about her, however, that suggested mere confession would not suffice, but it would be a start.

A moment's glance upward was all the prayer he needed, and he decided to go with what he knew.

"Do you want confession, child?" He offered.

"Confession? What's that?" Her confused, askance look told him all he needed to know. Even non-Catholics knew that Catholics as a rule took the sacrament of Confession, but to meet one who did not know anything about it was a rare thing indeed.

Jennings offered his hand, inviting her to stand and follow him.

"It'll be easier to understand if you come with me to the confessional booth. Everything told to a priest is kept in the strictest confidence, and does not leave the confessional." He led her to the side, to a row of small enclosures that appeared like cabinets, and he opened one, motioning her in. "Close the door and kneel."

She did so, waiting for what, she did not know. Only a moment passed before a small panel slid open at head level, mildly startling her.

"Father Jennings?"

"One starts by saying 'Bless me Father, for I have sinned.'"

Automatically, with every bit of fear that one possesses in the face of the unknown, she repeated, "Bless me Fa- father, for I have ss - sinned…" Inwardly, some unknown, profane thing screamed its defiance against this ritual, and she felt her terror increase. It was a supreme effort of will that squelched that tiny spark of unholy rebellion.

Jennings nodded at her somewhat anxious start. "That'll do. Since this is obviously your first confession, I'll just start by saying 'Well Done'. Now, my child, what troubles you? The Lord hears all prayers, and knows all hearts, and he listens to his children."

"I'm no god's child, Father. I don't know whose child I am," she answered in defiance, and she immediately felt nervous and shameful. "Oh no, should I have said that? Am I going to be hurt for it?"

Jennings chuckled softly, "Well, that's a more unusual reaction than I've heard out of any of my parishioners, but I think something as reflexive as that might not be so heartfelt as you fear. I think you'll find when you know the truth, you'll actually feel much happier."

A brief chuckle of her own passed her lips, which were cracked in a half-smile of...it wasn't amusement or defiance, or ridicule. It definitely wasn't ridicule, and there might have been a bit of a curious element to it.

"Really?"

"All God's children are happy to be His children. So, what did you want to know?"

"I've found out I'm a lot stronger than most people, Father."

"That's hardly a sin, my dear."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I hurt someone tonight, Father. I hurt him bad. That's how I found out. What's more, it scared me."

"Go on."

She found herself taken aback by this refusal to judge. She had been ready for whatever hurt he decided she must endure, though how it would happen she had no way of knowing, as running through several brick walls should have left her feeling at least a little sore. What was more, she remembered not having so much as a scratch from the entire ordeal.

Whatever she had heard in his voice at that moment, she knew she had felt compelled to continue then, to unburden herself in speaking.

"It started nice," she said, hesitantly. "He made me feel good. Then, he- he was inside me. It felt good having him inside me. But the more it went on, and the better it felt, my inside started squeezing him, and before I knew it we were both screaming. I don't know why I screamed, but I know he was in pain and he couldn't get away from me. I didn't think to try and pull him out or to try to let him go, I just tried to get away as fast as I could. That hurt him more, I could tell because his screaming got louder, and then there was blood…" Her voice faltered then as she felt the terror of that event return to her.

"Where did the blood come from, my child?" Jennings encouraged her.

Her gaze snapped toward his voice reflexively, as though she still expected some recrimination for the outcome of her passionate act with Hank. When only silence replied, she shut her eyes and breathed deeply in. She tried to release her fear with her breath, and to her surprise, she felt clear enough to continue.

"There was blood between us, where we joined. It gushed out from between us, it was all over us, all over the bed, and then I realised some part of him, the part that was inside me, had torn off. That _**I **_had torn it off by not letting him slip out. It had torn off inside me, and I had to reach inside me to take it out, and I was so scared that it would tear to pieces if I pulled but I still had to get it out. He'd stopped screaming by then, and he was still making painful noises and grabbing the, the other part, and I wanted to cry so much, but when his, um, his flesh tube finally came out, and I saw it, I let it go and I ran."

"You ran?"

"Yes, I ran! I ran through the door and I smashed it, and I just ran away as fast as I could! I wasn't even thinking about where, or what was in my way, and I just smashed through everything in front of me. The only thing on my mind was to get as far from that place where it happened as I could as fast as I could. I didn't count how many walls I went through - "

There had been some crazy stories that Father Jennings had heard in the confessional before, and some of them could even have been validated by a possible independent account, but to hear this slight young woman say she tore her way through several walls...his mind automatically conjured an image of this shaken-up, emotionally devastated woman smashing her way through several brick walls in a fit of panic, and he just as instinctively dismissed it as lunatic raving.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" He couldn't stop the words from coming out of his mouth, and Jennings immediately looked upwards in supplication, petitioning his God's forgiveness for his prejudgement.

"I should probably show you, Father." Her reply was as sudden as it was unexpected, and Jennings found his curiosity stoked. The need to see this proof of which she spoke outweighed his instinctive urge to offer her a ride to the hospital. After all this, he still felt like it might be the right thing to do, to help this poor soul come to grips with the incident and her feelings of guilt and remorse. Still, he felt he owed it to her to let her try and explain herself.

"How?"

"Not in here."

Five minutes later they were both outside the church, in the car park where his Ford Taurus was sitting idle in its reserved space. She reached down, securing a firm handhold under the rear bumper, and with careful effort lest she damage some part of the vehicle, she raised the rear end slowly and smoothly, until it sat on its front tyres at nearly a thirty-degree angle.

By Father Jennings's observation, she could have managed the feat just as easily with one hand and twice the weight. She was being careful, very careful, and that knowledge made him feel very glad for it, as he hesitated to think just what sort of destruction she could cause if she decided to throw that caution to the proverbial wind.

With the same amount of care, she set down the sedan and released it, and then she walked over to the nearest stretch of road, looking over her shoulder toward him, beckoning him to follow. He did so, wondering just what sort of feat she had in mind to demonstrate this time. He was still in awe as to her unprecedented strength, and he knew he would see something spectacular.

She stopped in the middle of the road. A quick glance to either side told her that none other than the priest was watching her, and then she focussed on the road and, curling her delicate fingers into a fist, she slammed it into the road.

Jennings felt the impact from ten feet away. Large cracks had spidered out from where she had struck the asphalt, perhaps almost halfway to where he was standing in all directions. She then stood up and walked back toward him with a neutral expression on her face, and when she stood before him, she raised her hand and flexed her fingers separately and then together.

"Dear God." His amazement was too great for him to be scared now, and he dared not voice his sentiments out loud for fear that he'd either wake up, seeing this as nothing but a weird dream, or that she'd be startled and run away. "Let me see your hand."

She extended her hand toward him, and he took it, turning it over to examine it more closely, fearing that more obscure damage might have been inflicted upon the seeming delicate tissues.

Not a scratch. Not a broken bone. Not even a chipped nail.

"I know."

Her reply startled him - he wasn't aware he'd spoken out loud.

"And this frightens you?" he qualified. "Most people I know, especially the women, would kill to have your kind of power."

"Not if they understood what a nightmare it really is. To be that strong, and at a time when you really need to be in control and you can't be, all it does is hurt. But if there were some power that I had, maybe, that could undo the damage, that could heal?"

"That's definitely something to think about, and maybe to pray on." Before she could protest, he added, "I'll pray for you, my child, and I hope that you do find that power within you to heal people. I think that might be a greater strength than any you've demonstrated. For now, though, the most healing thing you can do is to go see your man in the hospital, and let him know that what happened to him was nobody's fault."

Her initial hope turned to shock at his suggestion. Surely this was impossible, Hank would never understand, nor would he forgive her for what had become of him. To be turned away then, after seeing him again would hurt more than seeing him writhing in agony in the hotel, or watching the medical people roll him into the ER while he was so out of it from blood loss and painkillers that he would not know she was watching over him.

"How can I face him, knowing what I did to him? Seeing me will frighten him more than anything."

"Maybe not, not if you go to him showing true compassion. Remember, the Lord loves all His children, big and small, weak and strong. Trust in Him, and He will not lead you astray."

"How do I trust a god that does not show himself?"

"He does His work in many ways, my dear child, and we don't always see them, but that is where faith comes in."

"You want me to believe that this god of yours will somehow show me how to heal my friend?"

Jennings nodded. "Belief can be a very powerful thing, if you let it. You've shown me that you're unlike any human I've ever met. Nobody I know can do the things you do. Nobody else is that strong or that tough. You believe you have these qualities because you've demonstrated them. What is required now is a belief in something you don't know and can't prove."

"You mean, you want me to believe that I can heal my friend."

"Succinctly put. But belief is more than just thinking you can and hoping for the best. It's a deep conviction in your heart that something is true, that it's possible, without relying on any evidence supplied by our own senses. It's knowing, in your heart, that God will lead you to the proper place to do His work."

"How will I know?" She asked, confusedly.

He smiled. "Just ask God."

**Sunnydale Regional Health System**

He awoke in a hospital bed in what appeared to be the recovery ward. A cursory inspection told Hank that there had been emergency surgery done to him, to stem the flow of blood and to truncate the loose and torn flesh that now substituted for his ruined manhood.

At least he hadn't lost his scrotum. That would have been the end for him.

He tried to get up, and was rewarded for his efforts by immediate pain shooting through his groin and abdomen, and he lay back down, gasping for breath and doing his best to hold back a scream. As it was, a loud grunt escaped his lips, and his head fell back onto the pillow, where his drool had moistened the fabric on one side in his sleep.

Not a minute later, the door opened, and a nurse entered the room wheeling a cart full of medical equipment behind her. She was rather shapely in her purple scrubs, athletic, perhaps, with an almond complexion and straight, dark hair symbolic of Asians.

"Awake at last, are we? No, no, don't, let me get that for you," she hurried as she leaned toward and picked up a cup of water that Hank had begun to reach for. She lifted it to his lips and maneuvered the straw within to enter his mouth. He took a careful sip - his throat was parched beyond belief, and so he tried to drink more deeply, just to have the cup taken from his hand.

"That's enough for the moment. Your throat's still a little raw from having been intubated, and you might find it a little hard to speak for now," she cautioned. She watched his eyes drift toward her badge and added, "my name's Pak Myung-Sook and I'm the head nurse for this shift tonight."

iA Korean, huh? Not too many of those around here/i, Hank thought, remembering what Buffy had once told him of her life here in Sunnydale. In fact, he hadn't remembered her mentioning any Asian friends to begin with.

"How long…?" he tried to ask. His throat felt ravaged, dry and leathery. The words came out at a whisper.

"Have you been here?" She finished for him. At his nod she replied, "About a day since you were in post-op. We had to add clotting agents and about three pints of blood to keep you from going into shock, but you pulled through alright."

"And…?" Perhaps some atavistic impulse prevented him from openly mentioning it, or maybe it was just his masculine pride taking a hit, and a huge one at that, but something inside him bade him keep silent about the recent change in his situation. He didn't want this nurse, this highly attractive nurse, to think him weak or any more incomplete than he already was.

"Doctor Sanders will be in later today to go over your injury and your options for recovery, Mr Summers." She looked at her chart and then back at him. "Dear God. I'm so sorry. It says here your next of kin is a Dawn Marie Summers."

He nodded. "She just lost her sister, and her mother two weeks before that. I came down to try and ID Buffy's body, but she'd -" He coughed and sputtered, and his throat felt like it was being clawed and burned from the inside. As soon as the fit subsided, the nurse handed him the water again. He took a grateful sip, and when the pain subsided he tried again. "She was just leaving, she'd already identified her sister. We didn't exactly...part on the best of terms, but I'm hoping she'll come back around."

Myung-Sook nodded understandingly, reserving her judgement for something that was more her business. "Well, this iis/i a small town, so word travels fast here. We can handle your recovery from your injury discreetly, so you won't have to worry about that too much. But eventually people will find out, and you'll be subjected to a wide range of reactions from sympathy to ridicule. The doctor can fill you in better than I can, but it's up to you how people find out. As for Dawn, she'll get the best support the people of Sunnydale can give her."

"Thank you, miss Myung-Sook, I appreciate it. My daughters - well, daughter - mean everything to me."

"That's good to hear, Mr Summers. Are you ready for me to check your vitals now?"

He held out his arm, and as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff, he had the distinct impression that he was cursed to be surrounded by beauty, with the knowledge that he could never again give them the pleasure they craved. It hurt him terribly, maybe even more than the avulsion of his manhood. That pain had lasted a while, and he had needed anaesthesia to dull it, but even that was momentary. Physical pain was always momentary. This would linger on long after he figured he would grow used to the idea of life without a penis.

His thoughts then turned to Dawn. As far as he could tell, she had lost just about everybody now. First her aunt Celia, her niece, her mother, and now Buffy, and she had rejected him, her friends having threatened him with violence should he ever approach her again. Who would look after her now? She seemed so helpless, almost literally unable to look after or protect herself. With no-one but friends to look after her, he could see the State of California putting her in foster care.

He'd heard stories about foster families. While some were good, and would apply for adoption, others looked at foster care as nothing but a source of income, and the most frightful tales of abuse and neglect came out of those homes. He knew now that he loved his girls, and that even if Dawn was the only one left of Summers blood, he would do his damnedest to earn her love back. No foster home for his little Pumpkin Belly, as Joyce called her. No way, José.

Myung-Sook hung up her smock, her shift done for the night, and she prepared to head home when she ran into Svetlana, her longtime friend from nursing school. The Russian blonde was a huge flirt, having noted that guys loved her accent, throaty and musical, and she played with them constantly by making her accent thicker than it really was. Her English had improved by leaps and bounds ever since her parents had brought her over from the Soviet Union when they defected, but there was always a hint, a trace of Russian still remaining in her speech, especially under stress. There were times when she'd forget to say "the" or "a", or to use a "be" verb, and guys would turn their heads and lean out of rooms to catch a glimpse of the "sexy Russky chick".

She knew - it was funny to her, except when it wasn't. Every now and then some guy would make a play for her, cop a feel, or do something else moronic, and she'd let them know in very clear terms that she was nobody's plaything. One time a fellow med student, who just couldn't get enough of the "sexy Russky", decided to make his move, and then she'd felt his hand smack firmly against her hind end. Quite naturally, she reacted harshly.

A steady stream of acidic Russian invective poured forth from her lungs as she proceeded to knock the living daylights out of him, and it took two hours of her chattering in broken English and about five eyewitnesses to salvage her medical career, but she got hers, and the wannabe Lothario, whose name she'd never bothered to learn, had gotten what was coming to him. It was sufficient to say that he would never again pursue a career in medicine.

Svetlana looked at Myung-Sook and smiled. "Hey, how's it going?" It sounded like "Khey, Kha's it gawing?", and Myung-Sook laughed.

"Oh, I'm ready for a long, hot soak and a good meal, Sweetie," she replied. That was her pet name for Svetlana, as she couldn't quite get the pronunciation just right. Svetlana didn't mind, even though the sound of it grated on her ears slightly. It wasn't quite nails-on-chalkboard, so she tolerated it. "You?"

"You know me, always ready for some action."

"_Shippalnyun_!"

Svetlana looked at her in mock surprise and shock, her hand fluttering over her chest in the manner of a Southern belle. "I'm no slut, but you wanna know little secret? Men love slut. _Da_?"

Myung-Sook shook her head, although she secretly agreed. Men loved a woman who wasn't afraid to be upfront about sex, even though outwardly it made them nervous.

"You are a laugh and a half, Sweetie!" Myung-Sook wagged her finger. "I swear, you'll flirt with anyone! Too bad for Hank Summers, though, huh?"

"Da. People with his particular injury would probably be more appreciative of some affection, though, I would think."

"Just don't lay it on too thick. That poor man just lost his wife and oldest daughter within two weeks, and his youngest daughter is all he has now."

"_Bozhe moi_! That's terrible!" Svetlana's eyes widened in shock and sympathy.

"Yeah, it really is." Myung-Sook looked downward slightly, the pity in her eyes registering as a distant look. A deep breath later, she focussed her gaze back on her counterpart. "Remember, compassion. We're trying to make him feel better about himself, not worse. So no flirting."

**1630 Revello Drive**

The mailbox was stuffed. People throughout the day, having heard of Dawn's bereavement, stopped by at all hours to put sympathy cards and letters of condolence and encouragement in the enclosure, or stepped onto the porch to drop off packages with flowers and other sundry items for well-wishing. Others had visited, neighbours from down the street or just random passers-by to offer words of comfort and support.

It had gone on for only two days, but already the living room table was covered in sympathy cards and checks to help cover funeral expenses, sometimes even large sums of cash. Twenty dollars here, a hundred dollars there. It was all getting to be quite annoying to Dawn, to the point where she wished it would all just stop. Just for a moment, she wanted nothing but to be left alone until she was ready to resume living.

Willow and Tara had immediately moved in, mainly to be there for Dawn, but also so she wouldn't lose the house, it being the only thing left that reminded her of her mom and Buffy. They still had all the financial and legal matters with which they had to contend, and Willow could still hack like a madwoman to change the ownership documents to their name, but the important part was Dawn and her well-being. They had each noticed the signs, how Dawn stayed stoic all the time, but with their other senses, Willow and Tara could feel the målstrom of emotions roiling just under her exterior.

Willow had briefly thought about a spell that would help her confront her emotions more easily, and in typical Willow fashion, was about to go into her bulldozer mode and do the casting when Tara stopped her.

"Honey, just what do you think you're doing?" She asked semi-sweetly.

"I'm trying to help Dawn, darling, and this spell should be just the thing. Simple to set up, not much change asked for, just helping Dawn face her feelings," Willow looked over her shoulder and replied innocently, her preparations having barely begun.

"You-you mean forcing her to face her feelings," Tara rebutted sternly. "It's not our place to upset the natural order, hon, Dawn's got to face this on her own terms, in her own way."

"Isn't that the whole point of magick, Tara, to help those that need it? Like Dawn needs it?"

"She needs our support. She needs us to be there for her, to listen, not to advise her or help her, not the way you're thinking, baby. It's not going to be easy for her, and it shouldn't be easy, because otherwise she'll never grow past th-this." Tara took a breath to steady her nerves, and then she continued. "What you're pr-proposing could very well do her harm instead of helping her…"

"'An It Harm None, Do What Ye Will'. Yeah, the Rede." Willow nodded her head in recognition of the ancient law of Wicca, slightly humbled by Tara's admonishment. "Well, we can still talk to her, can't we?" She asked, perking up, and feeling slightly relieved at her beloved's gentle, reproving smile.

"We certainly can."

A moment later the twosome were downstairs in the parlour, sitting across from a morose Dawn Summers, who looked as though her stare could peel the paint off the walls. The coffee table was piled high with sympathy cards and care packages, including checks and stuffed envelopes. At least one of them had been opened, and half the contents poked out, enough to suggest a large sum of cash was in there.

"That's a lot of cards there," Willow attempted, "I'm surprised. I honestly didn't think so many here could be this thoughtful. Is that money in that envelope? Do you want me to count-"

"One thousand, five hundred dollars," Dawn replied in a voice that indicated she was less than impressed. "That's just that one envelope. There's another thick one just over there that I didn't have to open to figure out it had a ton of money in it. That's just two envelopes, there are at least ten more just like them. And there's cards with checks for large sums of money, gift cards for clothes, food, other stuff...they must be trying to help with the funeral expenses. Though I don't see the point."

"People around here loved your mom and Buffy both very much, and Joyce at least was very well-respected in the community," Tara opined. "I think that's the point of all this. They know you're the only one left, aside from your d-"

Dawn's glare drew her up short. "Aside from Hank, they know you're the only one left of the whole Summers family, and they don't want you to feel like you're alone."

"But I am alone now. Isn't that the truth?" Dawn's ice blue eyes took the measure of Tara, of Willow, of the tableau before her. The desolation in her eyes spoke volumes. "My mother is dead. My sister is dead. My father may as well be dead. This," she swept her arm through the air over the vast outpouring of sympathy, "is an insult."

Willow exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Tara, the fear prevalent in her eyes for Dawn's state of mind, and then she fixed Dawn with a withering glare.

"Aren't you being just a little bit selfish, Dawn, just maybe? These people sent you these gifts before you out of the goodness of their hearts, because they care as much about you as we do. If you're going to cheapen them by declaring them an insult, then you don't know your mom or your sister a tenth as well as you thought you did. Your mom, she would have done everything she could and more, to keep you safe and alive and well-cared for, and she did all of that without so much as a dime from Hank. And Buffy? She was the Vampire Slayer! She put her life on the line on a nightly basis, striking down the monsters in the closet, the horrors that most people believe are a fantasy. And she actually did die once, before Xander resuscitated her. Not for long, but long enough to call another Slayer. What right-minded individual would be so insane as to willingly confront the legions of the damned, so YOU could sleep soundly at night? Don't let her sacrifice be in vain, Dawn Marie Summers, don't you do it!"

Tara took over this time, as much to sooth Dawn's nerves as to give Willow a chance to calm down. Willow babbled when she was nervous or agitated, sure, but this was a full-on rant. In Willow, those were rare, so Willow had to mean every word of it.

"What were Buffy's last words to you, Dawnie?"

Dawn blinked a couple of times, her breath then releasing all at once when she realised she had been holding it. "Um...she-she said, um…'The hardest thing in the world is living in it, be brave, live for me."

Tara hadn't been up there, on that tower, facing that portal and certain death, so she had to believe those last words were true. She gave it her best shot, though.

"Yes, and do you th-think this is living for her, calling all these gestures of kindness and sympathy an i-insult?" Looking in Dawn's eyes as she spoke, she could see Dawn beginning to relent as understanding took hold. She pressed her advantage, surprised that her stutter had minimised as she grew more assertive. "Or would she have preferred you to accept these gifts gratefully?"

Dawn's voice was little more than a whisper as she realised how shameful her previous attitude had been. "Gratefully, I guess?"

"Do you really have to guess?"

"I'm thirteen years old, Tara. How am I supposed to be so sure about this stuff?"

Tara shrugged her shoulders slowly. Her experience with teenagers, especially young teenagers, was extremely limited, she having been the youngest of the Maclay clan, and cajoled all her life into thinking she was a monster. This was virgin territory for her, and she was making up the rules as she went along. Her best source of wisdom had been her mom.

"I don't think there's anything certain about it. Most grownups aren't always so sure at times. You just...take a leap of faith, I guess."

Dawn had begun to open her mouth to ask another question when the phone rang. Tara excused herself and stood up, walking over with the grace that made Willow fall in love with her. In less time than it took to blink the receiver was off the hook and pressed to her ear.

"Summers residence, Tara Maclay speaking. Oh, hi Xander! Oh, yeah, she's right here." She covered the microphone and turned toward Willow. "Babe, it's for you."

"Ok, I'm coming." Willow stood and walked over, wagging her eyebrows at Tara for the double entendre, and accepted the receiver. "Hello? Hey Xander. Say WHAT?" She covered the microphone. "Dawn, it's about your dad, he's in the hospital."

"Great," she groused. "I hope his wiener fell off."

"Dawn Marie Summers, you apologise right now! That's an ugly thing to wish on your dad, no matter how much of a poopy-head he's been!"

Dawn could only giggle at Willow's version of profanity. Her tittering was cut short at Willow's and Tara's twin death glares.

"Sorry."

Willow turned back to her conversation with Xander. "Sorry about that, now go ahead? What happened? No frigging way!" She looked back to Dawn, and the expression in her face was a recipe of shock, horror, anger and amusement. If Willow's and Tara's looks were death glares, the twin lasers emitting from Willow's expression could have blasted a planet to rubble.

"What happened? Did his wiener really fall off?"

"It didn't fall off, it was torn off." Turning back to Xander, she pressed for details. "How'd it happen?"

"Apparently this woman he boinked in a hotel room took more from him than he was willing to give." He chuckled on the other end, but in the background, Willow could hear Anya laughing hysterically. Clearly vengeance demons had an altogether distinct sense of humour.

"Go on."

"Well, supposedly she was riding him for all she was worth, and when the moment came, her love tunnel clamped down hard enough on his pecker to turn it into spaghetti. She couldn't let go and tried to back off - Anya, get a grip! - Geez, that woman will be the death of me one day. You watch, I'll end up throwing my back out or something."

Anya chose that moment to interject. "Or end up with his dick in a vise! Hahahaha, get a grip, that's a good one!" She laughed her way to the bank with that.

"You hear what I'm talking about, Wills? She's gonna do something to me one day, and I'll be lucky if I come away from it looking like Hank the Gelding."

"Yeesh…" was Willow's only reply.

(End Chapter Two)


	3. Sympathy

_Disclaimer and Author's Note - It has been some time since the last update, and I'm struggling with some real life issues, which issues have kept me from creativity for the most part, and I've only lately had the opportunity to chip away at this latest chapter until I achieved my target word count, but here it is. Some issues with this chapter will be resolved in the next one, so please bear with me here._

_I do not own Buffy, that belongs to Joss Whedon and the copyright owners. Please do not sue me, ye almighty copyright owners, as you'll receive naught but the lint in my pocket. I make no profit from this work, save for the satisfaction of putting fingers to keypad and pen to paper, though I did unfortunately lose my notes, more's the pity._

_Oh yeah, a big shout out to deiticlast for beta reading this for me. Any further mistakes are my own._

**Chapter Three - Sympathy**

**Sunnydale RHS**

Nighttime. Not the best time to have to go take a piss. But the call of nature heeds no injury, and a full bladder requires no long tube to empty it.

Hank had woken up feeling just such a need, and he had to try to get up, to attend to the thing himself. Bad call. It still hurt like the blazes trying to sit up, like something had taken his pecker and squeezed it in a fucking vise.

Oh, that's right. He didn't have a dick anymore.

He had to get excited about fucking another woman, maybe even getting in love with her - though he wasn't so ready to get over Joyce yet, may she rest in peace - and the bitch happened to have a superpowered cunt that squeezed the life out of his tackle and sheared it off by trying to pull away from him.

He swore, when next he met that woman, she was going to die. By inches.

The pain in his nonexistent tackle finally forced him to concede defeat. He fell back onto his pillow, breathing hard from the exertion and the pain and the humiliation. He pressed the buzzer to call for the nurse and waited. Two minutes later a medium-tall blonde, an ice blonde at that, walked into the room.

"Hhelloa, Meester Sommers, what dho you nidd?" That's how it sounded, anyway. She was quite clearly Russian, from that thick, throaty accent. It was lovely.

"Who are _you_?" His throat was still feeling a bit sore, but his voice was at least a little bit stronger now, and in spite of the lack of his manhood, he felt some of his old confidence returning.

The Russian smiled. "Svetlana. But you can call me Sweetie. I've heard it actually easier to pronounce."

Hank chuckled a bit, and his chuckle turned into a coughing fit when his throat started to rasp from the still-raw sensation.

Svetlana was on it in a heartbeat. "Hold on, hold on. You need water. Take sip, no more than that."

"You're lovely," he managed to whisper.

"So I've been toald." She smiled despite herself. It didn't stop a single tear from escaping the corner of her eye, and her smile disappeared as soon as she remembered his unfortunate circumstances, to be replaced by a wistful longing. She pitied him and her inability to comfort him the way he needed, due to his recent...detachment. "I had heard about your wife and daughter, and I wanted to offer my condolences for what you must be going through. Must hurt so much."

Hank nodded and cleared his throat before trying to speak again. "We went through a rough time for a while, especially after the divorce, but I think, in the end, I actually did love them. I've just made so many mistakes in my life, and now I'm paying for them. Yeah," he agreed, "it does hurt."

Svetlana nodded as well. "If their loss didn't hurt so much, you wouldn't have loved them to begin with. Trust me, I'm big slut, so I know thing or two about love," she offered. Her doe eyes bespoke a hidden wisdom borne from experience with love, especially lost love. Not that any of her previous conquests had died, but she felt their passing from her life just as keenly. It might have been a little selfish to think that, perhaps, but the knowledge and confidence it granted her balanced it out and made it worth a little selfishness.

He laughed and sputtered simultaneously, his eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets at her brazen commentary, her refreshing and wise comedy. "Really?!" His mirth turned into a brief coughing fit, which didn't do his stomach or his groin any favours. "Oh shit! Sweetie, please don't make me laugh again, it fucking hurts too much!" He croaked, unable to bring himself to feel angry over the pain.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Do you want something for pain?" She fluttered over him, nervous as all get out for being unable to predict his needs beyond the obvious, and she called for some painkillers, having looked at his chart at the moment she stepped into the room and deciding it was safe to administer another dose.

As soon as a nurse came in with a phial and a syringe on a tray, she punctured the phial with the hypodermic needle, measured the amount to be given, and she thumped the syringe a few times to make sure all the air could move to the needle end so she could press it out. An embolism wouldn't do her career any good, she noted, pressing the plunger with the needle pointed up until a drop of fluid emerged from the sharp tip, which she then inserted in the rubber stopper in Hank's IV line. She then pressed the plunger again, slowly, making sure to watch his reaction for signs of anaphylactic shock. She withdrew the needle and placed it on the tray along with the spent phial, and she nodded her thanks.

"Спасибо."

The tray bearer nodded. "You're welcome, Svetlana."

She exited the room, and Svetlana reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of Hank's face, allowing a tear to roll freely down her cheek. "Just give it minute to work, ok? Let it work. Вы бедняга…to suffer so much…"

**1630 Revello Drive, the next morning**

A knock on the door got Willow's attention just as she and Tara were putting away the breakfast dishes before heading to work. She threw a cup towel over her shoulder and squeezed Tara's hand lovingly.

"Just a second!" she called out. She walked over to the door and looked through the peephole, then stepped back momentarily in surprise.

"Who is it, Willow?" asked Tara. She leaned out of the kitchen to see the look of shock and amazement in her paramour's expression.

Her paramour mouthed, "Cordelia."

Tara stepped out fully, her eyes lit up in excitement and gladness at finally meeting another of Willow's high school friends. "Well, let's let her in."

Willow took a second to compose herself before opening the door. It would not have gone well with her if she tried to act as though the We Hate Cordelia Chase Club hadn't been disbanded, especially knowing that Tara would urge her to let bygones be bygones.

When she opened the door, she was surprised to see Cordelia dressed in black. Not surprisingly, Cordelia Chase always managed to make even mourning look like the fashion du jour. Willow stepped aside to admit her, carefully saying nothing and daring her to step across the threshold, the customary Sunnydale invitation into the home for those long-term survivors of the town. Cordelia stepped through and did something that Willow never expected.

She gave Willow a hug.

"I'm so sorry to hear about Buffy and Joyce," she said. "I was hoping to catch Dawn before she went to school and tell her that, but I can wait for her to come home. Would that be alright?"

Willow blinked a couple of times to clear her head, thinking that perhaps she didn't quite hear her correctly. There had been enough time passed between the disbandment of the We Hate Cordelia Chase Club and now, though, for maturity to set in, so Willow did what she considered the sensible thing.

"Uh, yeah, sure. That'll be fine. Make yourself at home."

"Thank you, Willow." She took off her hat and hung it on the coat rack, then she hugged her again, noting for the first time the presence of a new person. "So, do you want to introduce me to your friend?"

Willow caught her expression, which was thankfully and surprisingly free of derision or ridicule, then she smiled and released Cordelia before turning to Tara. "Oh, this is Tara Maclay, my girlfriend. We kinda took up ownership of the Summers house after Joyce died…"

"Oh yeah, I was sorry to hear about that. Was it…?" she asked nervously.

"Oh, no. It was nothing Hellmouthy, just an aneurysm after the docs at Sunnydale Regional removed a tumour from her cerebrum."

"Butchers and quacks, the lot of them," Cordelia swore. "If I still had my money I'd have taken her straight to LA County hospital, or Cedars Sinai, where they have the best doctors and surgeons. Sunnydale Regional oughta be closed down as a matter of principle."

"I hear ya, Cordelia," Willow agreed. "My mom and dad always swore by Cedars Sinai when it came to oncology and neurosurgery."

Cordelia squinted in mild confusion, "I'm not going to pretend I know what the first one is, but as far as brain surgery goes, I'm with you one hundred percent, the latchkey child thing notwithstanding."

"Poopy-heads."

"Uh...ok?" Cordy grimaced as Tara giggled. "You know, Willow, I've just gotta say it," she sighed in mild exasperation, "You cuss like a kid. I want you to say it with me one time. Shitheads. Come on, Willow, say it."

"No!" Willow cringed. "That's just gross!"

"And you're a grownup now, Wills," Cordelia replied firmly, daring to use Xander's nickname for her. "Grownups say gross stuff. Come on, now, woman up and say it. Shitheads."

Willow hesitated, and out of the corner of her eye she caught Tara nodding, and she wondered in that instant where that encouragement was coming from, but she tried again.

"Sh-shitheads…" she mumbled.

Cordy squinted with disapproval. "That was pathetic, Willow. You're angry with them because they neglected you. Use it. Growl, shout, I don't care which, but say it like you feel it. They're a couple of _shitheads_!" Her head darted towards Willow with the emphasis, forcing her to jerk back, wide-eyed, and Cordelia could see her anger rising to the surface.

"Shitheads!" she blurted out loudly in reflex.

Cordelia smiled. "How does that feel?"

Willow paused, not knowing whether to feel embarrassed or relieved. "Uh...good, I guess? Still feels gross…"

"You don't have to overdo it, but you'll get used to it, I think," Cordelia approved, her brown eyes twinkling with a blend of mirth and appreciation. "Welcome to adulthood. Now come here…" she said as she drew Willow in for another hug.

**Sunnydale Junior High School**

Dawn had just hung up her gym clothes and closed her locker, but her mind was on the funeral, the thousand gifts and the thousands of dollars on the coffee table at home, and on Detective Stein's words and promise to her, to give Buffy a hero's funeral with an honourary police rank of Captain. Who did that, she wondered. In any other town it would be unheard of, but this was Sunnydale. The weird and the frightening were commonplace, and everything and everyone was literally one step, one wrong move away from the literal end of the world, and one person, one unlucky girl was chosen to be the only line of defence between humanity and literal Hell. This time, it had been her sister, and now she no longer had a sister, and the world no longer had a Slayer.

No, scratch that. The world no longer had a proper Slayer. There was still one left in all the world, but deservedly, Faith Lehane was serving a life sentence for Murder One. If she had any sense, Dawn swore to herself, the bitch would stay behind bars where she belonged. If another Slayer got called, chosen or screwed over with a so-called "sacred duty", she would never be the equal of Buffy Summers.

Dawn slung her backpack over her shoulder, thrusting her arm through a single strap and grasping it firmly to settle the weight on her shoulder, and she started to walk out of the locker room, her mind still on the next two days' events, when she ran into a wall.

At first instance, she had thought it was a wall. She brought her mind back to the present, focussing on what turned out to be one of the Mini-Cordettes. That was what she called them, privately anyway. They behaved and looked just like what Buffy had described Cordelia and her little group of followers and sycophants during high school, and they were nowhere nearly as well-mannered, acting more like a pack of wolves than Cordelia's former inner circle. Elizabeth Wells, her classmate in gym, stood in front of her, smiling and daring Dawn to make a move.

"Can you please get out of my way, Wells?" an exasperated Dawn sighed and attempted to dodge, only for Elizabeth to block her path.

"I wanted to offer my condolences, seeing as you just lost both your mom and your sister all in the same month, Summer," she said, her voice filled with what Dawn was sure was insincere sympathy. Her eyes darted slightly upward, noticing the other Mini-Cordettes assembling behind the Summers orphan, and she smiled, knowing her prey was surrounded.

Dawn wasn't a fool - she had seen the eye movement and turned her head only slightly to spot Chani and Helen DeMarco on her left behind her, and Deanna Mears and Demetria Ditchik on her right. She looked back at Elizabeth and cocked her head in annoyance.

"Look, I appreciate the sentiment and all, but since I know it's bullshit, I'd like to just be on my way to class right now -"

"Uh, not just yet, Summer," the blonde, prim, prissy and well-manicured Wells had placed her hand firmly against Dawn's shoulder and pressed hard. Not enough to push her backwards, she had judged, but certainly enough to cause Dawn to stop. "You just called me a liar. I hate being called a liar -" she started.

"Would it kill you to maybe, just this once, stop being a cold-hearted bitch, Lizzie?" Dawn countered, raising her eyebrow as her voice thickened in warning. "Like you just said, I've lost nearly my whole family, so I'm probably not myself just now. Meaning you _really_ don't wanna do this."

Dawn had unconsciously let her backpack fall off her shoulder and into her hand as she spoke, and she stared daggers at the leader of the Mini-Cordettes as she made to either hopefully walk past or prepare for the fight she knew was coming.

"Now, I'm going to go on to my next class, and if you so much as lay a finger on me to stop me again, you'll find yourself wishing you hadn't, believe that…" she added.

Elizabeth gingerly placed the tip of her finger on Dawn's collarbone, and then pain erupted in her head as Dawn's backpack slammed into the side of her head with the force of a sledgehammer.

Dawn didn't hesitate. She spun on her heel, not waiting for Elizabeth to go down, and her foot shot out and caught Demetria in the stomach. The Ditchik girl doubled over in pain, her breath gone, and Dawn's backpack collided with the back of her head, causing her to crack her head on the concrete floor.

The other three socialites were stunned by the violence of Dawn's response. This allowed Dawn, who was seeing red now, to follow up her downward swing with another one to Deanna's face. Deanna's hands flew to her face as she spun away, clutching her cheeks and attempting to stem the sudden flow of blood streaming from her nose

"You bitch! You ruined my n-" she didn't get to finish her last word as Dawn's foot found her backside in the next half second, and a massive thrust kick later Deanna's head collided heavily with an open locker door. She crumpled to the floor, writhing and sobbing in pain and humiliation.

Chani and Helen saw their opportunity at that moment, each of them reaching for an arm and pulling Dawn back away and slamming her into the opposite wall. Dawn's breath was driven from her as her back had smacked solidly into the brick facade just under the windows of the locker room, but her anger was stoked now, and she was driven to exact her revenge on Elizabeth's group of bullies. If one of them had thought to punch or kick her in her solar plexus, she would have been unable to recover her breath for at least a few seconds, but as it was, they had made a mistake, and Dawn intended to capitalise on that. Chani cocked back her right fist and rammed it forward to smash in Dawn's face, but a split-second's tilt of her head caused it to impact on the wall instead, causing Chani to howl in pain and draw back her injured hand. Her right fist shot out and impacted squarely on Chani's jaw, her teeth bared in an animal snarl as Chani's head spun with the force behind it. She recognised that Helen was now on her left, almost behind her, and she spun to her right and lashed out with her right leg. Her foot connected with Helen's midsection, forcing her to double over and shield her torso from further potential damage, and in the next instant, Dawn's left knee shot upwards and connected solidly with her jaw. Helen hovered in place for a split second before she collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

Dawn looked around, seeing the fruits of her labour as the Mini-Cordettes lay either squirming in agony or knocked out cold, in some cases bruised and bloody. She finally spied Elizabeth huddling in a corner, and she knew her vengeance had not yet been sated. She grasped the blonde by the arms and hauled her to her feet, the latter mumbling and whimpering in protest, pleading for mercy that she feared might not come. Dawn positioned Elizabeth just a couple of inches from the wall, and then she reared back with her right fist and let it fly with all her strength. She repeated the attack twice, and the double impact of Dawn's fist and the wall on both sides of Elizabeth's head left her on the verge of unconsciousness, and then she pushed her up against the wall and wrapped her fingers around Elizabeth's throat, squeezing cruelly.

Before she knew it, a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around her, under her arms and then upward to interlock the fingers behind her head, to force her to release her death grip on Elizabeth Wells's neck. The commotion had drawn a crowd, Dawn had then surmised as she was being muscled out of the locker room by whom she assumed was campus security, having been alerted by Chani after she had fled the locker room. She looked at the various students that had gathered to witness this latest break in the daily monotony that was their scholastic existence, and none of them would return her gaze, seeing how the grief in her heart had turned to fury and vengeance at the Mini-Cordettes' provocation.

**Principal's Office, Sunnydale Junior High School**

"You put me in an _extremely_ difficult position, Dawn Marie Summers," Principal McIver glared down in an apoplectic rage at his latest guest. "What were you thinking, young lady? Were you even thinking at all?! Part of me says I should throw the book at you and have you taken away to juvenile detention in Sunnydale County Jail for what you just did, and I would be well within my rights to do so. Christ's sakes, you nearly _murdered_ a fellow student! You bloodied up four of her friends and nearly turned the girls' locker room into a war zone! I served in Desert Storm, young lady, so I know what close-quarters combat looks like, and what I saw came as close as it could get without there being any dead bodies which, need I remind you again, there very nearly was! Do you have anything to say for yourself, Miss Summers?! Or should I go ahead and call an officer in here to take you away?"

Dawn, for her part, had just sobered up from her adrenaline-fueled rampage, and she had just begun to contemplate the resulting consequences, and to process the fear that accompanied them was a difficult process still at present. She still felt very little remorse for having dispensed what she considered justice to a pack of remorseless and pitiless bullies, but she had no idea up until now that what she had done had very nearly resulted in death. Even as familiar with death as she was, the loss of her family notwithstanding, the knowledge that she had very nearly ended a life by her own hand was a shock to her senses, and she knew, even here where it might be deemed too little, and too late, she had the overwhelming urge to try to make it right somehow.

"Sir, I wasn't trying to kill anyone, I swear," she replied, her voice quivering and threatening to break. "I warned her not to put her hands on me and she wouldn't listen. Her friggin posse was all around me, too, just waiting for a chance to do something. I've just lost my whole family in the last couple of weeks, and I was cornered, scared half to death - what was I supposed to do? Just let them do whatever they wanted to me and then tell someone after the fact? They didn't give me any choice - I had to fight my way out, and then I just got so _mad_…I just got so mad, she was making fun of me for Mom and Buffy dying…"

McIver let out his breath in a huff - he knew Dawn's situation was tragic, but he had no idea that the group that Dawn had termed the Mini-Cordettes would stoop so low as to taunt her for it. He knew Deanna Mears and Elizabeth Wells both came from bad families, having had each of their older brothers come through his office on more than one occasion when he was assistant principal, but the DeMarco twins, whose parents had apparently been Dune fans to name them Chani and Helen, and the Ditchik girl all were part of families that had been nearly on par with the infamous Chases in terms of both influence and affluence until the Chase family's fall from grace. Apart from their attitudes, their tendency to play follow-the-leader, they were genuinely good kids, and McIver felt on more than one occasion that a breakup of their little clique and setting a better example for them to follow would help them out tremendously. He had hoped it wouldn't have had to come to a violent altercation, but a more Machiavellian part of him thought that this situation might just be the key to a regime change in the Mini-Cordettes.

"Be that as it may, Miss Summers," he said, "this still forces me to navigate a political minefield here in terms of how to handle this mess. The Wells and Mears families both want you locked up, and they've said as much to the school board in very clear terms. The DeMarcos and the Ditchiks might settle for several days of suspension, if and only if you write them each a letter of apology, handwritten and heartfelt. It might - and I emphasise that term _strongly_ \- might smooth things over with them enough if you write letters to the Wells and the Mears families as well, that I can persuade the school board to get them to back off and accept your suspension."

Dawn swallowed the lump she had then just felt in her throat. Suspension was still a serious punishment for what had just transpired at her hands, and glancing around at the various pictures taken of Mr McIver in his Marine uniform, both in garrison and in what was presumably a combat zone in Iraq, plus the various educational accolades covering the walls, she had to feel as though she would be granted no reprieve or mercy. Anyone who had just a decade ago endured combat action had to feel very little sympathy for rulebreakers, no matter what cloth they were cut from, and Dawn felt she would be no exception.

"Now I understand you have a funeral coming up here in a few days," he added, causing her to break out of her grim reverie. Looking her in the eye now that he had her undivided attention, he continued. "So I'm going to cut you a one-time deal here. _If_ you write these letters, handwritten and heartfelt and delivered personally to my hand within twenty-four hours from now, then I might limit your suspension to just after the funeral, and once your sentence is completed, then I'll wipe your record clear of this incident, with little more than a bad memory and a lesson hopefully learned. Refuse, or delay your submission of those letters by so much as _five minutes_ past the deadline, and I call in that officer and it's off you go to Juvie!" He stood up then, reaching out with an insistent open hand, the hard look in his eyes daring her to refuse. "So, do we have an accord, Miss Summers?"

She stood then, the weight of the whole dimension settling itself firmly on her shoulders, and she clasped his hand and shook it firmly. "Yes, sir, we do," she answered solemnly. "Oh, by the way, Principal McIver? Thank you for your service. Semper Fi, sir."

A hint of a smile formed on his features, and he felt slightly embarrassed and more than a little proud that such a young lady could genuinely acknowledge his combat service in the Corps. "Thank you very much, Dawn, that means a lot to me. Now go wait in the outer office while I contact your guardians to come pick you up, and then you get started on those letters while I try to square things away with the board. Oo-rah?"

"Oo-rah, sir," Dawn replied meekly.

"Have you lost your mind, Dawn Marie Summers?!" Willow shrieked.

"I already explained it to the principal, Willow," Dawn retorted plaintively, wondering for the umpteenth time since she got picked up at school by the irate witch whether she might persuade her that the suspension and apology letters, lenient considering the alternative, were punishment enough. "I didn't mean for things to get so out of control. I probably did lose my mind there for a bit, but I swear, I didn't mean to try and choke her to death, I just got so frigging mad! She and her Mini-Cordettes made fun of Mom and Buffy dying - was I just supposed to let that slide? Plus they had me cornered, surrounded, and they weren't about to let me go running to a teacher or some other grownup for help. I had to fight my way out, and I thought it was easier to just strike the first blow, but then I knew if I attacked one of them I'd have to put them all down, and from there it just got out of control."

Willow sighed, looking to Tara for support and guidance, and Tara's hand grasped her own, squeezing gently in a demonstration of love and solidarity. Turning back to Dawn, she held her gaze with one of her own, blending sympathy and reproachment.

"Dawn, you're grieving, I get that. But here's the rub - people lose family all the time, all over the world. And a lot of them lose their whole family at once. But you wanna know something? They don't use their grief to justify any and everything they do - they confront their feelings, they deal with them, and they go on, because they know that life goes on regardless of how much pain they suffer."

"I'm not using my grief as an excuse, Willow, Tara! Those bitches had it coming -"

"Watch your mouth, Dawn," Willow returned with a calm, icy fury. "Yes, they're bullies, they're a bunch of poopy-heads -"

"Shitheads, Willow!" Cordelia called out from the bathroom.

"It's Dawn, Cordy, so poopy-heads!" Willow answered back over her shoulder.

"Dawn, don't you leave that room until I come out, kiddo!"

"Cordelia's here?" Dawn blurted, her eyes widening in anticipation and perhaps a bit of worry.

"Don't change the subject, young lady," Willow interjected. "Those girls bullied you, and they definitely crossed a line in the sand when they talked smack about your mom and Buffy, but you can't just beat them up and choke them almost to the point of death and chalk it up to grief and insanity. That's what the school system is for, that's what counselors are for."

Tara nodded in assent and then turned to Dawn. "How long is your s-suspension, sweetie?"

Dawn took a long breath and let it out slowly, focussing herself and clearing her mind. "I have twenty-four hours to handwrite and submit letters of apology to the families whose girls I attacked. Once I do that and they're approved, my suspension lasts till the day of Mom and Buffy's funeral. I gotta write them good, too, or else no suspension, and I go straight to Juvie Hall. But, he's promised me that once the suspension is over, it'll be wiped from my record, and it'll be like it never happened. I'm guessing that maybe he'll turn the suspension into an approved leave of absence or something. But that's the deal Principal McIver gave me, and I agreed."

"Sounds like he's doing you quite a favour, Dawnie," Tara replied, her eyebrows raised as she turned her gaze to Willow and then back to Dawn. "If I w-were you, I'd get to writing those l-letters. We'll talk about this some more later, ok?" Turning back to Willow, she nodded. "Agreed, honey?"

Willow looked at Dawn, contrition etched lightly in her expression. "OK, Dawn, I'm sorry I blew my stack earlier. Suspension, which is pretty damn lenient considering what you could have gotten, is still a very serious matter, but at least he's not throwing the whole book at you. So get on those letters, and don't forget why this is happening, that way you might not end up doing something like this again, or I'm pretty sure he won't hesitate to throw the whole book at you. If you think suspension's bad, just think about how expulsion and a few felony assault charges as well as attempted murder sound. And if you need help with any part of those letters, apart from one of us actually writing them for you, don't hesitate to ask, ok?"

**Sunnydale Regional Health System, daytime, outside**

She stood outside the main building, looking up at she had learned was the third floor recovery ward. She had spent the last two days and nights wandering around town, thinking about what Father Jennings had said and sampling some of the food in one of the local eateries, paying for it with some of the stuff he'd called 'money' and 'dollars'. Surprisingly, she had felt very little hunger, though the last thing she had eaten, a baked potato and side salad with what they'd called 'ranch dressing' was delicious. She'd especially loved the crunch of the bacon bits and the different flavours of butter, sour cream, and green onions that were piled atop the steaming hot tuber, as well as something called an iced tea that was sweeter than anything she'd ever remembered tasting without being overwhelmingly rich. She'd taken her time with the salad and the baked potato, but she'd downed the glass of iced tea in a flash, enjoying the rush of cold liquid and sugary sweetness as it filled her mouth.

Mainly, though, she'd spent her time thinking about how she would undo the damage she'd done to Hank, and whether or not the priest was right about believing it was possible. Her thoughts had invariably led her back to the hospital where she'd tearfully watched the ambulance people take him inside. She'd learned that he'd been taken into what was called an "emergency room", but that it was not the main entrance to the building.

She'd also learned that this place felt familiar to her, though she knew not how. Part of her told her that she used to do things here, things that helped people, and she wondered whether or not she should start with that. But for the life of her, she didn't understand how she could connect that with her life as she knew it now, or whether it had anything to do with her powers.

She was still lost in her ruminations when a strong, authoritative voice called out to her.

"Excuse me, ma'am, can I be of help in some way?" asked a man wearing a white shirt and black pants with equipment all over them. One of the items on his belt was connected by some curly cord to a smaller item on his shoulder, and he had just removed his hand from that small object.

"Um, I have a friend here who's very hurt, and I wanted to know how I might see him?" she attempted to explain.

"Well, you can go in during visiting hours and ask the receptionist what room your friend is in. You just ask for him by name, tell them who you are," the man answered, "and they'll let you know if your friend can have visitors and when. There's even a gift shop where you can buy items to give him to cheer him up, if that's what he likes."

This worried her - she didn't have that much money left, and she didn't know how many dollars she'd need to buy anything. Father Jennings had given her only one hundred dollars for food and clothes, and he'd let her stay at the church to sleep, but she hadn't thought she'd be expected to buy anything else, or for anyone else.

Plus there was the fact of her not remembering who she was - her memory still hadn't returned, and she had no idea how to go about getting it back.

"Ooh," she winced, "erm, I kinda don't remember who I am right now…"

The man tilted his head, then his hand came back up to the small object on his shoulder and squeezed it, tilting it toward his face. "Control," he spoke into it, "I have a young white female here, approximately thirty years old, says she has a friend here in the building but she's claiming memory loss, please advise?" He released it and turned his attention back to her. "Can you remember anything else? Who's your family, where you live, that sort of thing?"

"Uh….no."

He nodded. "I think we'd better get you inside and have someone look at you, ma'am. I'm no doctor, but I've seen some serious head trauma before, and a lot of times the victims became amnesiac. You don't look like you've taken a bump to the head or anything but better safe than sorry."

**Sunnydale Regional Health System, an examination room, thirty minutes later**

She sat still as nurses checked her vital signs, amazing them with her level of physical health. She knew enough, having thought the matter through, not to demonstrate the limits of her strength and her speed, and thankfully none of the staff were keen on finding that out, being as they were more concerned with the state of her mind. They had wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm and had her hold a thermometer under her tongue as it inflated. The oddest thing they had her do was to go into a bathroom and urinate into a cup, for what they had told her was part of a toxicology screen. Anything present in her blood that might affect her mental state likely as not would be filtered out by her kidneys, and would show up in her urine.

It was when they tried to draw blood from her that they had the first signs that something wasn't right. One nurse wrapped a bit of rubber tubing tightly around her upper arm and put a rubber ball in her hand, which she was supposed to squeeze repeatedly. She swabbed some alcohol on a spot in the crook of her elbow and waited a couple of seconds for it to air-dry, and then she uncapped a hypodermic needle, large and about an inch and a half long, with a beveled tip that revealed it to be hollow for the transport of liquids such as injectable medicine or for the collection of blood.

"Hmm, that's funny," the nurse said as she attempted to pierce the Jane Doe's skin, "I can't seem to get it to go in." The skin yielded somewhat due to the pressure of the needle, and those needles were razor-sharp. They needed to be in order to function properly. Yet when she withdrew the needle to see what was the problem, she held it up before her and looked closely, and her eyes widened at what she beheld.

"No friggin way!" she exclaimed to herself. Still holding the needle, she turned on her heel and walked to the door of the examination room with a purpose.

Leaning out, she called out, "I've got a defective needle in here, need a replacement."

About five minutes later another nurse showed up with a package wrapped in sealed plastic and paper, and the phlebotomist opened it up to extract another needle just like it. She examined it for any visible defects to make sure it wouldn't bend or break when she made her second attempt, as the other nurse picked up the used needle, looking closely and skeptically.

"How'd you manage to do this, Jean?" she asked.

"Carol, let's just make sure the same thing doesn't happen to this needle," Jean replied insistently, with Carol watching as she positioned the needle for insertion into the Jane Doe's vein.

As with the first one, the skin yielded to the pressure, but it would not break, and this time the needle itself broke in half. The two nurses jerked back as the sharp object shot upwards, colliding with the ceiling and bouncing off of the newly-curled tip. Neither wanted to lose an eye or start gushing blood if they ended up being punctured on the ricochet.

"That needle wasn't defective," Carol pointed out as Jean shook her head, denying the evidence of her own senses as she leaned over and untied their patient's tourniquet.

"No shit." Jean agreed. "We're not going to be able to get any blood from her, but Dr Wilkerson will want to see this for herself when she gets in. Maybe we can get her to try and stick her herself when she schedules her CAT scan and MRI."

"I ain't never seen this kind of shit before coming to this town," Carol complained, "and if I see it again, I swear to God, I'm gonna move somewhere else."

**Later…**

Dr. Wilkerson had seen a few strange things since arriving in Sunnydale to start as a general practitioner, and more than enough of those had prompted her to question the nature of the town. If she had not been a woman of science and medicine, she might have sworn there was more going on here than anyone would care to admit, even though people in this town tended to look the other way when faced with something they couldn't quite understand or reason out. They just had this weird way of rationalising everything, using their own imaginations to escape from what was clearly going on right under their nose. Rationalisations were dangerous, though, Wilkerson had learned, and were generally a symptom of some form of mental illness, though she couldn't figure out how a whole town might succumb to the same mental malady, with the same symptoms. No two minds were alike, so there had to have been some outside force present and influencing the populace. The best example of that was the destruction of the High School two years ago, blamed on a gas leak, though any competent investigation would put paid to that theory in fairly short order.

So it stood to reason that, when two nurses called her in to try to prove that an amnesiac Jane Doe in their charge was actually needle-proof, she had to see for herself.

She marched straight into Examination Room 2 upon entry to the hospital proper, and she watched with interest as Jean Saunders, the chief phlebotomist, made her third attempt to pierce their patient's vein, amazed when the tip of the needle literally curled itself against this young woman's skin.

"Did you ask about the batch number for these hypodermics, Miss Saunders?" she asked intently.

"Yes Doctor," Jean replied dutifully, "had them run the numbers twice. This batch, just like everything else, had been checked thoroughly at every stage of production and inspection, and all the paperwork backs that up. These needles are not defective, so my guess is there's something in our Jane Doe's skin that's preventing anything from puncturing it or making any kind of breakage."

Wilkerson paused thoughtfully for a moment. "Alright," she said at length, "have them check that batch and lot number again for any defects. I'm gonna make a couple of phone calls as well. In the meantime, let's get her a CAT scan and an MRI, as well as an EEG and an EKG. Collect any data you can, I don't care if you gotta get a sweat sample from her. We've gotta figure out what's going on with this woman, and whether or not it can affect her negatively. Call me when you have anything significant to report."

"Yes, Doctor," the two replied.

In her office, Diane Wilkerson sat lost in thought. The test results showed nothing conclusive, and nothing to indicate how the amnesiac Jane Doe in her care could acquire the toughness and durability in her skin to prevent any puncturing or abrading thereof, and there was no medical precedent to indicate its possibility.

The analysis of the young woman's urine, sweat and other liquid secretions found phenomenally high amounts of collagen in her system. Most dermatologists knew that collagen was a macromolecular protein that normally comprised one-third of the body's tissue content, especially in the skin, nails and hair. Gram for gram, it was stronger than steel, but it wasn't produced in such quantities in a normal person's skin. And skin was not steel. The Jane Doe's skin, however, behaved like it was made from a high-grade carbon steel and not from proteins, and it had shown properties of suppleness and pliability found in a human female maybe half her age. It stretched, it yielded, but it could not be torn, cut or pierced.

Another very odd thing had been noticed in the young woman's fluid analysis. With every human, DNA markers could be found in dead cells streaming throughout a person's blood, lymph, saliva, sweat, and urine. With her, there were no traces of DNA whatsoever, and it was yet another thing that had frustrated the team of nurses and specialists that were trying like hell to not only identify the cause of her highly unusual resiliency and toughness, but to identify her personally in order to help her recover her memory. The only thing they hadn't done was to take her fingerprints to check against the FBI national database, something which she'd resolved herself to do at the next opportunity.

That left one approach to identifying the woman that Diane hadn't yet tried, one which she was skeptical of using because of the unenviable position in which she'd undoubtedly put herself, but at this point, until word got back from the Bureau, it was as likely to yield any results as anything else, which was to say it was as likely to be a dead end. She picked up her office phone, and then she paused, in that moment realising that this was not a call she needed to make over an office phone line.

Picking up her cell phone, she dialed a number, hoping that the right person would answer. After several rings, a young female voice piped up.

"Hello, Summers residence, Willow Rosenberg speaking."

She took a quick breath before answering. "Yes, Miss Rosenberg. My name is Diane Wilkerson, I'm a general practitioner at Sunnydale Regional Health System, and I have a patient here that you might be interested in checking out…"

(End Chapter Three)


End file.
